Hot Topics in Archival Research

What does the Smithsonian Institution Archives collect? We say we hold records about the history of the Smithsonian and its people, programs, research, and activities. But this answer doesn’t quite do justice to the breadth and depth of our holdings.

The reference team fields around 6,000 queries per year. Ask us what people have been researching recently, and you'll get into some of the enlightening, weird, and fascinating details of the Archives' collections. Here is a sample of the diverse questions our researchers have been exploring for the past few months!

Penguin Press emailed us to request historical images of dancing bears for a book cover illustration. Our photos team reported back that, regrettably, the Archives' collections contain only photos of bears doing traditionalbearactivities.